Red Light, Green Light: An Easy Idea for Difficult Kids

Silence. That is the sound of my home right now, and let me tell you it is golden! After a ten-day long Spring Break in which my family did absolutely nothing, the sound of a silent house is like absolute bliss to my overstimulated brain.

Don't get me wrong, we live in Santa Barbara, so the term "Staycation" here is nothing to sulk about.

However, most of our local friends spent the week in the mountains, Spring skiing in the sunshine, or going on epic roadtrips across the great state of California, and I'm not going to pretend my FOMO didn't spike when I went on facebook to see people enjoying tropical vacations in faraway lands with pretty drinks in hand.

With Ty working straight through Spring Break this year, I was in full-time Mom Mode. This is my 14th year as a mother so although I am no Spring chicken, I know my way around this motherhood business.

Though nothing could prepare me for the onslaught of terrorism that my 5-year-old daughter invoked in our house this past week. I was completely unprepared for the wave of chaos that affected our daily lives. I use the term "terrorism" humorously to describe the unpredictable and often overwhelming nature of her energy and demands.

As a parent, I often find myself navigating the unique challenges that come with raising a neuro-spicy child. Some specialists may describe my youngest as a Deeply Feeling Kid or DFK, which is a nice way of saying she lacks the ability to regulate any of her emotions and feels everyday moments with such intensity as if her head might explode and her body may actually catch fire. I am not exaggerating this, and if you are a fellow parent of a Deeply Feeling Kid, you are likely nodding your head in understanding right now. It's some crazy shit, and I can assure you that typical parenting strategies will not work on these kids.

They will laugh in your freaking face if you tell them what to do, and no amount of time-outs or taking away toys will make them change their behavior. That's because these kids are highly sensitive and emotionally intense and genuinely process the world in a more profound way than typical kids.

Day 4 of Spring Break is when she finally broke me and I called my husband sobbing. I'd spent hours trying to calm my wild little stallion as she raged on with insults, hitting, kicking, scratching.

My job is to ensure all my children feel safe and loved in our home, and I could clearly see that my 8-year old son was being deeply impacted by his little sisters outbursts.

You'd think that a teacher and a child psychologist with four children would have no problem raising emotionally stable children, but that has not proven to be true for us.

Given the fact that our four children have endured an extra amount of emotional and psychological distress as they watched their dad endure cancer for several years, our particular children came into the world with a rainbow of neurodivergent flavors (ADHD, Dyslexia, Anxiety, OCD).

People often ask me how I possibly manage to raise four children. Mothers around the world do this high-capacity mothering all the time, some of them even do it without the help of a partner!

My response to this question is always the same. I have a very capable, very involved, very supportive father of my children. I do wonder if I'd be better at this mothering gig if my kids were more neurotypical, and I have shed many tears about this regret, but since I am a Gen Xennial (1980 baby!) I was raised hearing "You get what you get and don't throw a fit."

This particular day though, I threw a fit.

"I can't do this anymore! I am done! I have nothing left to give her! I am desperate. I need help." I flung these words at Ty as he walked in the front door.

He jumped into action, like a good daddy should, and promptly sent me to take a break so I could get my shit together and calm my nervous system. I sat angrily in the rocking chair in our bedroom, the same one I rocked my little terrorist in when she was my precious baby. I love her fiercely, I always will, but to be honest, I often feel that I am simply not enough for this intense child of mine.

Lucky for me, Dr. Ty came to the rescue and by the time I was done feeling sorry for myself, he and our youngest child had mapped out the most thorough emotional regulating plan I'd ever seen. The best part is that my daughter is the one who bounced into the bedroom so excited to share with me what she had learned!

Lucky for you, I'm going to share every little detail of this plan in hopes that it may help another desperate mama or papa out.

First, Ty introduced our youngest child to The Zones of Regulation using the familiar concept of a traffic light.

Ty's Tips:

• Keep it Cozy: Ty had Molly cuddling him on the couch during this talk, as she was still in a heightened emotional state so he first needed to ensure her mind was calm enough to soak up this new information.

• Make it Visual: He had several pieces of large paper, along with red, yellow, and green markers so our young daughter could visualize what he was saying.

• Keep it Neutral: When teaching kids about emotional regulation, be careful not to turn this into another form of punishment or a boring lecture where you drone on and on at your kids. Have fun with this lesson and let your kids take ownership over the design of their plan so they feel a sense of excitement and control!

• Make it Fun: Ty did some role-play where he acted out each zone as if he were a kid, they had some silly tickles and giggles to lighten the mood, and he gave our daughter the fun markers to draw her own pictures on the posters that now hang on the door of her Calm Closet Corner.

The Green Light Zone:

• Define: This is the "ideal" zone where kids feel their best.

• Emotions: Happy, calm, focused, content, proud. 

• How to Teach:

  • Use examples of activities that put them in the Green Zone. For our girl, this is when she is playing pretend with Mommy and her dolls, riding her scooter, and petting our cats.

  • Encourage them to identify when they are in the Green Zone and what makes them feel that way. 

The Yellow Light Zone:

• Description: This zone brings a heightened state of alertness, where people might feel frustrated, excited, or a bit anxious, but still in control. 

  
  

• Emotions: Frustrated, angry, excited, silly, anxious. 

  
  

• How to Teach:

  • Explain that this zone is like a "warning" sign, indicating that they need to pay attention to their feelings and potentially take a break or use a calming strategy. 

  • Discuss common triggers for the Yellow Zone, such as waiting in line, being asked to do something they don't want to do, or feeling overwhelmed. 

  • Teach coping strategies for the Yellow Zone, such as going to a calm spot, moving their body, or talking to someone about their feelings. (Together, Ty and our daughter created a chart full of Calming Ideas that is shown below)

    
    

The Red Light Zone:

• Description: An extremely heightened state of alertness, where they might feel overwhelmed, out of control, or enraged. This is Fight or Flight mode that indicates a person's "reptilian brain" has been activated. No, they aren't turning into a lizard, but this is the most primitive part of the brain and is meant to alert us to danger and allow us to react quickly. We need the reptilian part of our brain, but some of us do not yet have the skills to deactivate that Fight, Flight, Freeze mode as easily as others and we need to be taught those coping strategies.

  
  

• Emotions: Angry, mad, terrified, out of control. 

  
  

• How to Teach:

  • Explain that this is the "emergency" zone, where it's important to take a break and calm down. 

  • Discuss common triggers for the Red Zone, such as feeling bullied, being teased, or having a difficult time with a task. 

  • Teach calming strategies for the Red Zone, such as going to a quiet place, taking deep breaths, or talking to someone about their feelings. 

This is the poster Ty and our daughter made together about the Zones of Regulation. She was fully involved in the process and helped come up with the wording for each zone.

The Calm-Down Strategies

After making the traffic light poster with examples of each zone, Ty asked our daughter what she could do when in the Yellow or Red zones.

*It's important to note that these ideas were generated by our daughter, and she especially loved drawing pictures of what each calm-down strategy looked like.

When children get to be part of the conversation and feel a sense of control over their environment, it can be empowering in a way that may even eliminate some of their undesired behaviors without the need for negative consequences.

Think about it. Kids have very little control over their lives, being told everything from what to eat, how to dress when to go to bed, and even being told when they are allowed to play outside. These are little adults in training, so you can imagine how frustrating it must be to constantly feel like you have no control over any aspect of your life!

Let your child choose their own calm-down ideas (within reason, of course) and don't worry if the poster that will hang on your wall somewhere in your home is not picture-perfect.

It will be most effective if they get full ownership of what it says and how it works. Now, I know it is tempting to go on Pinterest and print out some beautifully crafted poster with Calm Ideas on it, but remember this is their childhood, not yours, and they live in your house too.

This is the poster Ty and our daughter made together. She came up with her own ideas of what she can do when she is in the Red or Yellow zone, and drew pictures of what each idea looks like. She is not yet writing fluently, or she would have also written her own ideas.

Creating a Calm Spot & Making Posters Visual

Since our family is large and we do not have a bedroom for each child, we realized our Deeply Feeling Kid really needed a space to call her own. I asked where she'd like to hang the posters she created with Daddy so they may visible to her anytime she needs reminders. I also want the rest of the family to see this visual chart about what our youngest family member needs from us to help support her mental health.

I've noticed that she often hides in our linen closet at the end of our hallway when she's upset, as this space also has some of her favorite toys inside. Well, as predicted, she decided to hang up her posters on the inside of the closet door and then asked if she could empty out the bottom section of the closet to make into a cozy calm spot. I was happy to let her have this nook, even though I had to curb my guilt that I didn't have a bigger and better space to offer her at the moment.

But parents, please hear me loud and clear when I say this: Kids don't need a fancy bedroom or large home or perfectly curated wall hangings! They crave time with you, and they need to feel safe, seen and loved.

If you want to create a Calm Corner in your home for your child but all you can offer them is a tiny corner of your living room, or a closet or even under a coffee table, then that is enough!

You'd be amazed with what child can do with a tiny space that you designate as their own. Our daughter filled her little closet corner with her favorite blanket, stuffed animals galore, and her favorite books.

It's been four days since Ty introduced this plan to our daughter, and though she still has had some really hard moments, the intensity of these outbursts have decreased and we are all using the same message with her.

"It looks like you are in the Yellow Zone, let's go choose a calm down idea from your chart."

"Oh wow, when you were riding your scooter just now you looked like you were in the Green Zone!"

"How are you feeling right now? What color on the traffic light do you think are?"

I know this is not a quick fix for raising my extra challenging child, but it's a solid start. It felt good to begin teaching her about the power of her brain and how to begin taking control of her own mental health!